Robot Claw – Page 346 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Ten Things We Saw At The Fair

July 24, 2016

Yesterday we went to the Saratoga County Fair! It was very hot which was a drag, but when we were there a cloudburst led to a 10 minute rain shower which cooled things off nicely. Here’s some of the things we saw at the fair…

You can buy all sorts of farm equipment at these fairs, and the above was considerably smaller (and less expensive) than most. I wanted to sit in the climate-controlled sealed cabin of a $70,000 ditch-digger but it was locked 🙂

While there didn’t seem to be as many animals as we see at the fairs we regularly go to, the quality and presentation of them was particularly nice. The rabbit shown above won first prize in a cavy contest!

I forget the name of the breed, but this is a goat with notably tiny ears. There were several like him at the fair; just a few of the abundance of goats they had on display. In fact there were more goats than horses, cows, sheeps or pigs. It was a very goaty fair!

I fired a bow! Six arrows cost $2, and since I hadn’t done this since a ‘farm holiday’ in 198X, I figured it was time to try again. Although they were clearly giving us beginner bows, I was surprised by how difficult it was to pull back and how even more difficult it was to aim. I’d need a lot of training if I wanted to become a Ranger! (I was firing at the dinosaur target but never hit it…)

I also fired a gun! 14 shots of the air rifle also cost $2, and since I couldn’t ever recall firing a gun I had to try. My aim was far better than with the bow and arrow, and would have been even better had the sights not been off at the start. She adjusted them after my first 4 or 5 shots, and the last few (including the two on the bullseye) were taken with the good sights.

While shooting the bow and gun were academically interesting, I think I’ve scratched that itch for another 40-odd years 😉

Speaking of pro-hunting propaganda, they had an entire room full of taxidermy of local wildlife. This guy is a groundhog, and innocent and cute creature that digs holes in the ground and can often be seen grazing in the grass at the side of the road. Who hunts these?!?!

A typical vendor in the food area. There were dozens like these, all serving overpriced, unhealthy but no-doubt delicious vittles. We ate before the fair, and therefore were able to resist their temptations.

As always we enjoyed the art displays, especially from local schools. Speaking as a pyrographer myself, I had quite a strong reaction to this award winning piece…

Lastly – and by no means least – the rides! The fair had a pretty good midway, but the heat (and rain) meant the rides weren’t too popular with the punters. I reckon at night they’d be going strong, but much of the rest of the fair (like the animal displays) are closed then so we never go at night. It would be nice to live very close to one of these so I could go and see the rides going with all the lights shining.

We also watched a truck pull contest, saw some gigantic horses, gawked at the vendors selling useless/unwanted stuff to passers-by and decided the grizzly bear show would perhaps be more sad than entertaining so gave it a skip.

All in all, a fun day at the fair 🙂

C.H.I.P.S

July 17, 2016

Yesterday we visited a potato chip festival held in Saratoga, the home of the potato chip as a snack food.

We weren’t quite sure what to expect (it was the ‘first annual’) as we each paid our $4 entry charge.

What we found was a big room full of chip companies handing out free product! There were no restrictions and organizers handed attendees as many carry bags (to hold samples) as they wanted. It was chip madness!

KLS won a shirt and we looked at a historical display, but this was very much about the generous free samples. There were smaller companies as well, sampling their wares (which included jerky).

Although we literally left with as much as we could carry, it wasn’t until we got home and emptied out the bags that we realized how much we had got…

Almost everyone had multiple bags of samples and we saw some with many more than us! In retrospect it was all a bit greedy and shameful and we were clearly overcome by the abundance of items available.

Suffice to say we won’t be buying chips for months!

A Good Investment

July 15, 2016

Back in 1996, specifically on March 26, I purchased this gameboy game:

It was the first Yu-Gi-Oh game released in the USA, and was pretty good for it’s time. Here’s some screenshots:

Obviously the USA version is subtitled, but you get the idea. I played the game, enjoyed it, put it in a box and forgot about it.

Look again at the cover, specifically the blurb at the bottom right: “3 Limited Edition Official Game Cards Insider!” Now I didn’t actually play the card game when I bought this (and never have) so the cards were little more than a curiosity to me. And for at least a decade they remained in the box with the game, unopened and unplayed.

Some years ago I removed them when I collected all the cards I had all over the place and put them into card boxes. Even at the time though I didn’t take moment to consider if any of them had value, although I was remotely aware that some of the cards I had acquired over the years must have been rare if only due to their age.

After this post, something triggered in me and I went and dug up my old Yu-Gi-Oh cards – including not just the three in this game but others that had come in other games or free with magazines – and looked up to see if any of them had value.

That’s when I did a double take!

That photo shows two of the cards that came with Dark Duel Stories. These were my cards, the exact ones that lived under a bed for almost 20 years. These two cards alone were each ‘worth’ over $100, by which I mean there were dealers on the internet prepared to pay me at least that much for them!

I’ve never actually sold anything of mine, but this was too good to refuse. After a quick chat with the guy that runs my local game store (who declined to buy them himself) I packaged up the three promos and a MTG card that I had pulled from a booster 9 years ago and sent them away to one of the leading secondary market websites. Here’s what I sold:

And about two weeks later my cheque arrived for an astonishing $460!

Individually, I got $20 for Exodia, $100 for Tarmogoyf, $100 for Dark Magician and an amazing $240 for Blue Eyes White Dragon!

Doing the math, based on the $20 cost of Dark Duel Stories and the $3.50 cost of the Magic booster, this works out to returns of 15.5% (over 20 years) and a whopping 45% (over 9) respectively. I should have bought 100 copies of Dark Duel stories 🙂

I was in denial this sale would go through until I actually received the cheque, because it’s hard to believe there is such value in Yu-Gi-Oh cards. But I have learned that the cards included with the game I purchased 20 years ago are amongst the ‘holy grails’ of collecting, specifically the ‘Blue Eyes’ since it was the first promo card released in the USA and has such a flashy foil effect on it.

I hope it eventually goes to someone that has wanted it for years and loves it. Even if it costs him $500 🙂

Now what should I do with the money?